1. Technical Field
Present invention embodiments relate to searching content, and more specifically, to providing a search context of a first user to a second user to enable the second user to obtain search results similar to those of the first user.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Searching for information is performed in a wide variety of contexts from World Wide Web (www)—based browser initiated searches, to basic research, to finding customer related information, and the like. To perform searches, a database or web search engine is employed to search data sources or repositories to retrieve documents or web pages based on the terms employed by the search.
When a particular user browses or searches online web content, a given search path is followed by the search engine based on multiple criteria, many of which form a user specific context (e.g., user location, regional setting, country, social attributes, job role, user search history, and/or user defined search options). Given the user specific nature of many web searches, the same search and corresponding search results are almost impossible to duplicate by another user. By way of example, if user A searches topic X and then passes information (e.g., search terms) to user B on topic X, it is nearly impossible for user B to follow the same search path as user A and obtain the same results. Thus, when user B initiates a search for the same content as user A, user B is likely to search under a different context than that associated with user A, and thereby obtain different results than those obtained by user A.
Accordingly, traditional approaches to web or other searches may hamper collaboration among users that may be working on a particular project and benefit from the ability to duplicate search results among users.